Friday, November 09, 2012

9:30 AM
- 4:30 PM

Vancouver Campus

By: Candace Plattor

There are many types of addictive behaviours that people choose to engage in to hide from their feelings and their life tasks. Some of the addictions your clients may present with could include alcohol and drug abuse, eating disorders, gambling, smoking, Internet addiction, compulsive over-spending, sex addiction, codependency in relationships, and often a combination of several of the above.

People do not become addicted in isolation, nor do they recover in isolation. Therefore, it becomes imperative to be able to help the families and other loved ones when treating addicted clients so that the entire family dynamic can heal. All too often, loved ones of addicts make critical mistakes when trying to help, ultimately leading to enabling behaviours of their own. Rather than actually helping, loved ones can unwittingly become "addicted to the addict's addiction." This creates a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.

When the loved ones of your addicted clients can understand the intrinsic differences between helping and enabling, as well as how vitally important it is to be able to set and maintain appropriate, self-respectful boundaries with the addicts in their lives, the whole dysfunctional system can begin to repair itself.

Whether your client is the spouse, partner, parent, child, or friend of an addict, the key to a healthy and stable recovery lies in helping them shift their focus away from their loved one's addiction to their own self-care, thus coming off the roller-coaster chaos of addiction and ultimately living their own best lives.

Workshop Objectives:

Exploring the special needs of clients who are loved ones of addicts and discovering strategies that best address their desire for change.

Becoming aware of your own personal triggers when working with loved ones and how to manage transference/countertransference issues in therapy sessions.

Assisting your clients to differentiate between their 'helping' and 'enabling' behaviours, so that they can begin to set and maintain healthier, self-respecting boundaries.

Learning to help clients come off the emotional roller coaster of being 'addicted to the addict's addiction' and focus on their own lives with holistic self-care.

Candace offers individual, couple, and family counselling in her Vancouver, BC office and by telephone worldwide. She also counsels family and friends whose loved ones are struggling with addiction, and provides Clinical Supervision for therapists working with addicts and their loved ones.

The workshop runs on Friday, November 9th and Saturday, November 10th from 9:30am to 4:30pm and is open to all Adler students, faculty, and alumni, as well as professional counsellors (presuming space is available - max 30 participants). At the end of the workshop you will be issued a certificate of completion - workshops are not for credit. The tuition for the 2-day workshop is $380.

Please contact Kirsten Pool at kpool@adler.edu for information on how to register for the workshop.